"Taito Grand Prix" is a pretty unusual and ambitious racing game for the Famicom. It is one of the earliest games featuring tuning and upgrading your car. And that is not all. Between the races you can move around on a kind of overworld and visit different cities. In the cities are shops where you can buy car parts and take part in a few races. You start the game with a mini-van, after finishing low rank races you can upgrade to a ferrari. Successfully beating all courses will give you access to a complete formula 1 season. Content-wise the game offers quite a lot for its time. Gameplay is the usual [url=http://www.uvlist.net/game-10081-OutRun]Out Run[/url], [url=http://www.uvlist.net/game-155-Pole+Position]Pole Position[/url] mix. The games has lots of courses, but sadly they are also repetitive of course. Even the Formula 1 courses take place in the usual low rank areas (desert scenario in Italy?). That damped my initial enthusiasm quite a bit. Controls are ok. So in the end "Taito Grand Prix" was partly ahead of its time and partly just another standard driving game when it comes to the driving action itself.***The game notably allows players to exceed 255 kilometers per hour. 8-bit games must allocate two bytes of memory to exceed the number 255. Most action oriented games of at the time don't bother for any numbers to exceed 255 except for a score; they opted to allocate only 1 byte for any number that goes higher than the number 1.

This cartridge contains Save RAM and appears to have a battery door so that is can be replaced. However, the door is fake.

Superstar Michael Andretti personally guides you through the perilous and exciting world of Grand Prix Racing! Four of the most powerful racing machines are your to command on 16 famous international Grand Prix courses from around the globe! Hone your driving skills or challenge the best - it's all up to you in this amazing simulation of Formula One racing!***Nakajima Satoru F1 Hero published by Kemco 1988-12-09 in Japan
Michael Andretti's World GP published by American Sammy 1990-06 in USA
Colin McRae Rally published 1992 in Europe

I have not played the Nakajima Satoru F1 Hero or Colin McRae Rally variants so I cannot be sure of the details of those games. But the Andretti and McRae versions are essentially just re-themed variants of the Satoru game. I'm guessing that few (or none) tracks and cars are common to all of them.

The Michael Andretti version is a fictional mixture of Formula 1 and CART racing and stars Michael Andretti (who had never driven an F1 car in 1988) . It includes Michael Andretti's Chevy Lola (CART), a Honda V-10 F1, a Ferrari V-12 F1, and a Mugen V-8 F1. It takes place on all the1988 F1 courses except Phoenix which is anachronistically replaced by Detroit. In reality, Michael Andretti had never won a race at any of these tracks but would win a race in 1990 at Detroit. He never even raced at 7 of the tracks, before or since this game. Like many racing games of its day it fairly accurately reproduces the 2D layout of real tracks but not the elevations or banks. Also the scenery, which sometimes is an important element of racing (the lighting difficult tunnel at Monaco, or the corner blinding baseball stadium at Suzuka, for instances), is only vaguely represented by an image on the horizon.

Control is unique in that turns are not preformed by holding the direction, but rather taping it to instantly rotate the car into one of seven predetermined turn radius positions. Gas is A, Brake is B, A+B will maintain speed, Start pauses, Select aborts, A and B cycle through menu choices. There are practice and two player verses options in addition to the main game. Players can take up to five qualifying laps to get a best time. Tire wear is a factor during qualifying. The player may pit and the time will count in that lap. Pressing select will end participation in the current phase of the current event. It is impossible to collide with opponents' cars. Placing in a race scores 1 for 4th place, 2 for 3rd, 3 for 2nd, and 5 for 1st.

Get ready for racing action like you've never experienced it. Because Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing is so much more than just a game you drive. It's a game you design, a game where everything - from the pit crew to the power boost, from the suspension to the speed, right down to the color of the racing machine itself - is in your control.
An entire racing season on the world's 16 toughest tracks lies ahead. Each demands its own strategy; Al Jr. will give you advice before every race. In the pusuit of the season's championship, you can set up and modify your own car, or climb behind the wheel of Little Al's maxxed-out machine.
Great graphics. Astounding action. If you're into racing, Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing puts you into it like no other game around!***[64]***[37]***[29]***[27]

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